Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Week #18 - Ocean Floor Project /Groundhog Day!

Today for Wonderful Wednesdays we made a diorama of the Ocean Floor to help with our memory work for science week 18. We also celebrated Groundhog Day!

We used pastry boxes from BJ's (I asked them if I could have some for a school project and they were very kind in giving them to me). Then I took cardboard flaps from a box (as you all now know is my favorite craft supply...LOL) and I bent it over to make a continental shelf and taped it underside a little way up on the box edge to allow for a "shelf". Next I took sand paper for the "shore line", then blue tissue paper and crumpled it up then flattened it out to make the abyssal floor. We used 1 ounce modeling clay that you can buy bulk from any supply store, to make the mountain ranges and then fan folded a blue piece of construction paper to be our ridges. A little paint for our walls of the box, mountains and the continental shelf. We added some cotton balls stretched and draped across where the ocean met our sand to imitate the foamy white beaches. :) Lastly, we glued labels for everything.

The kids did a great job! It was fairly easy and a fun project for them.

We did our review game as we end each week with. We rotate a Mom to be responsible for, and run the review game for that week. Today we played musical chairs. Kids walked around while listening to the timeline. When the timeline song was paused, they all took the seat closest to them. On the seat was one of the subjects. Each kid took a turn answering a question on their subject and then the music resumed to play another round.

We also celebrated the coming of Groundhog Day on Saturday the 2nd! We read a book about the Holiday and did a project using a map of Punxsutawney, PA that I got from this webpage: http://www.groundhog.org/ Then we had some sweet treats I made using chocolate pudding cups, crushed chocolate cookies, vanilla wafers, almonds, writing icing and coconut chips! It was fun and they were adorable! :)